Jeff Sessions loses Alabama GOP Senate runoff to Tommy Tuberville

Tommy Tuberville, right, speaks with a supporter.

(Image credit: AP Photo/Butch Dill)

published 15 July 2020

Tommy Tuberville won Alabama's Republican Senate primary runoff on Tuesday, defeating former Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

With 95 percent of precincts reporting, Tuberville has 61.1 percent of the vote, compared to Sessions with 38.9 percent.

Tuberville, a former football coach at Auburn University, is a first-time candidate. Sessions once represented Alabama in the Senate, leaving his seat when President Trump picked him to be his attorney general. Their relationship soured after Sessions recused himself from the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, and he was forced out as attorney general in 2018. Trump has been a vocal critic of Sessions, and endorsed Tuberville in the primary.

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Tuberville will face off against Democratic Sen. Doug Jones in November. After Sessions left the Senate to become attorney general, Jones won a 2017 special election to replace him, and his seat is considered vulnerable.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.